1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of electronic calendar systems. More specifically, the present invention is related to a system and method for feeding e-mail with calendar data.
The following definitions may assist in the understanding of terminology used throughout the specification:
calendar storexe2x80x94contains calendars, one per entity. Each calendar can contain calendar objects. The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) is one standard for defining the format of calendar objects (e.g., components, properties). A component is defined as an event, to-do, reminder, etc.
eventxe2x80x94In the iCalendar standard, an event is defined as a group of properties associated with an event calendar component. However, in the terminology of this disclosure, an event is broadly defined as synonymous with a calendar component (e.g., it does not preclude a to-do activity.)
clientxe2x80x94a calendar user. Associated with a client are his/her calendar events and contact list/address book.
contactxe2x80x94a person in at least one client""s contact list. In effect, a contact can also be a client, if he/she is a calendar user.
attendeexe2x80x94a person who participates in an event (e.g., a meeting). An attendee can also be a client, if he/she is a calendar user.
Calendar Access Protocol (CAP)xe2x80x94the mechanism to access calendar applications across system boundaries using any suitable access protocol or similar technology.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Electronic calendar systems are a widely used resource in today""s society. Electronic calendar systems contain information about events, such as what the event is, when the event will occur, and where it will occur. Attributes about the owner of a calendar, where the owner may be person, a community organization, or business, are contained in the calendaring systems. Attributes describe the owner and the owner""s preferences. Use of calendar systems help an owner manage their time, provide reminders to the owner, and allow an owner to summarize events that occurred on a specified date. Calendar entries provide a wealth of information. For example, for a meeting, information such as the start date, subject, attendees, and location are provided.
Calendar systems have been implemented in computers by programs like GROUPWISE(copyright) by Novell(copyright), Inc. and OUTLOOK(copyright), by Microsoft(copyright), Inc., to maintain schedules and appointments. The functionality of most of the calendaring systems that are available today are usually limited to local area network (LAN) or have very little, if any, interaction with other network environments. The current calendar systems also have limited or no interaction with other communication applications.
A commonly used resource today in the field of communications is electronic mail or xe2x80x98e-mailxe2x80x99. Computer networks allow users in a LAN or a wide area network (WAN), for example, to communicate with one another using e-mail. Usually, e-mail messages are just text, but they can also have attachments that can contain various types of files such as images, voice, etc.
A significant portion of e-mail is in response to calendar events (e.g., meetings). When writing a follow up e-mail regarding a meeting, information such as the date, subject, attendees, and location are usually needed. For example, in an e-mail to a remote user, one might say, xe2x80x9cStanley, when we last met on abc, we discussed xyz.xe2x80x9d As illustrated in FIG. 1, in order to write that sentence, a user 100 composing an e-mail has to first search through his/her personal calendar 102 looking for the entry for the meeting with Stanley and if found, a copy or cut of the relevant information 104 is performed. As a next step, the user 100 pastes the information 106 in the e-mail 108 and sends it via a mail server 110. Therefore, a need exists for a user to be able to automatically access information regarding specifics of a meeting while sending follow up e-mail to a client.
The following references describe electronic calendaring systems with little or no interaction with the network or any other communication media. The prior art described below require manual user interaction with calendaring systems (very similar to method described in FIG. 1).
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,977,520 describes an improved electronic calendaring process. McGaughey et al. outline a method for responding to an electronic meeting notice by presenting on one screen, in a side by side relationship, the details of the meeting notice and the relevant portion of the owner""s calendar.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,784 teaches a method and apparatus for a dynamic calendar response to an electronic message in a data processing system. An electronic calendar is searched for any scheduled event overlapping a time of receipt of an electronic message and a display is sent back to the sender providing information about the scheduled event.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,009 provides an improved method and apparatus for automatically providing the user with existing documents and information relevant to a scheduled event.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,822 describes a new and improved electronic calendar using new enterprise protocols and mechanisms to implement an enterprise electronic calendar. The protocol checking process (PCP) determines compliance of a user""s activity with the protocol and provides feedback in the form of reminders, e-mail, etc. to the user through the GUI.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,406 describes a method for scheduling meetings, appointments, announcements, and forms of communication by means of a computerized system. The reference also further discloses that the method described in the patent is particularly useful in communicating over the Internet or World Wide Web, assisted by e-mail.
The U.S. Patents assigned to Vincent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,077), Scully et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,045), Griffin et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,145), Baber et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,314), and Johnson et al. (5,664,063) all describe a calendar/meeting scheduling system.
IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletins 1/84 Pg. 4379 and 8/93 Pg. 513 describe a calendar/meeting scheduling system that allows users to manually manage their own computer calendaring.
The current invention eliminates the disadvantages (like copying/or cutting and pasting of relevant information from the calendar into the e-mail) posed by the prior art by providing a system and method for novel use of calendars by feeding e-mail with calendar data. The present invention also allows the user to save significant amount of time by automatically finding the relevant calendar entry, extracting the known information, and augmenting the information into the e-mail. Thus, the information regarding a prior meeting (like the start date, subject, attendees, and location) can be automatically inserted by the calendar system into the e-mail, without any manual effort on the part of the user.
The present invention provides for an improved system and method for feeding e-mail with calendar data. In addition, the present invention also saves a significant amount of time by providing a system and method to automatically find the relevant: calendar entry(s), extract the known information, and augment that information to the e-mail. Hence, the current invention provides for a more complete e-mail with greater accuracy.
A calendar client initiates an e-mail request to one of his/her contacts. The calendar system then searches the calendar store for client events where the contact was an attendee and extracts the relevant calendar data from the appropriate found event (e.g., most recent meeting). Subsequently, the calendar system augments the client typed e-mail message with the extracted calendar data and sends the e-mail request (via the mail server) to the contact.